


Vade Mecum.

by jefaiscequejepeux



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27986952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jefaiscequejepeux/pseuds/jefaiscequejepeux
Summary: No rules, just stories. // Call them what you like — blurbs, one-shots, drabbles — one per chapter, updated irregularly. (Gender Neutral OC.)
Relationships: Andrew Hozier-Byrne/Original Character(s)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 57





	1. Fluff

The room is in soft focus, and not just because it's too early and you're bleary-eyed.

You cast an eye toward the far off window, catching a sliver of the violet dawn through the haze of thick fog that was licking at the window pane. The curtains are half-drawn, and you aren't sure if it's because you forgot about them last night, deliciously distracted as you were, or, if he'd drawn them when he'd slipped from the bed — not altogether long ago judging by the warm space left beside you where you lay. 

He was in the shower now, humming softly to himself. He'd be on his way out soon, you figured, off to meet the sea for an hour or so, and then he'd be back — back to you and to this room and the bed you shared. He'd slip in beside you like he always did, wake you gently with kisses and the trace of his chilly pink nose along your warm, bare, sleep-softened skin, and then you'd waste the rest of the morning together all in the name of warming him up. 

You listened to his dull crooning for another second, managing to place the tune he'd been tinkering with and where he was within it. Realising that you had at least a handful of minutes before he emerged from the shower, let alone the bathroom, you slipped from the bed too, creeping off down the stairs toward the kitchen.

You boiled the kettle and waited, travel mug laid out next to a plain one for yourself and the cafetiere. You could see now just how wintery a morning it was, how typical, and how gorgeous. You took a breath, gave the steaming kettle a second to breathe too, and then poured. 

By the time you made it back to the bedroom, he was right there, towel-clad and damp haired, blushing, and glistening ever so slightly in the pale morning light. "Good morning," He grinned, planted a warm, dewy kiss on your lips, and then nodded towards your full hands. "What's this?"

"Coffee." You shrugged, placed his mug by his bag and coat set near the door, and then snuck another kiss before you stole back to bed. "Why'd you shower? Surely that makes it worse? You're so warm, now." You dangled a foot out from under the covers and pressed it gently against his bare low back, chuckling fondly when he yelped and ducked away. 

He answered your question, but with only a quick waggle of his eyebrows. He pulled on pants and a tee-shirt, stole a sip of your coffee, then slipped on a jumper. "I'll be back in a bit, okay?" He leaned over you, one long finger tracing the side of your face, tucking an errant strand of bed head behind your ear. "Thank you for the coffee."

He kissed you again, slower and more and tinged with just a hint of regret at his decision to leave. 

"You're welcome." You smiled, kissed him once more, and then shooed him away. You knew he'd be better for it if he just went and would regret it if he didn't go. "See you soon."

He tossed a smile — the one meant only for you — over his shoulder, your heart skipping at the gentle softness of him, and then he turned back to you once more.

"Don't go anywhere." His eyes darkened, his voice lower all of a sudden. "Just... don't move."

"Oh, honey, I'm not going anywhere." He laughed, and you echoed him. "I'll be here, waiting. You and the sea have fun now."

That was enough for him, his face glowing and your heart singing, and then he called back, "Love you," before he headed down the stairs, and it took almost as long as his swim did for you to wipe the giddy smile from your face.


	2. Angst (light)

Most adages are wrong. And they're wrong because they're too simple. 'Distance makes the heart grow fonder,' for example. That's essentially true. But what's more, distance breeds fondness because distance creates the space to miss someone. But missing someone also hurts. 

And that's the part the adage skips over.

You knew you'd miss him. He'd told you he was going to miss you, quite possibly a hundred times over, before he'd gone away. But for all your well-laid plans and all the fail-safes, the security measures, the band-aids, you'd built-in, you hadn't been as ready for it as much as you should've, could've, would've been.

It was somewhere around month four that things started to wear. It was somewhere around month five and a half when he began to notice you drifting. It was month six when he asked you to come out to visit. 

The flight was long, and the weather in this sky was different. The light was gone from the world when you landed. It was all fluorescent bulbs and stale air bumping up against smog and streetlights. He was working still, so you got a cab. You had to double-check the name of the hotel in his texts from late last night before relaying it wearily to the driver in a voice that sounded more nervous than you would have liked.

You tried to check-in, but the man behind the desk with the dubious look pasted across his face needed to make one, two, three calls to make sure you were who you said you were and where you were supposed to be before he'd give you the room key. 

Someone who wasn't him called you to apologise for the confusion, ask you about your flight. You managed to be polite, but still, they told you you sounded tired. 

You were tired. 

You drifted in a haze between the hotel room door and the shower, the shower and your open suitcase, the bed. You landed there at some point, on top of sheets that smelled vaguely of him. (He'd been here for a week, already; a residency.)

It was light when your eyes opened again, but only just. The city wasn't like being at home. Here, the sun had to rise over concrete and skyscrapers, not just manage to break through the inevitable greyness that the night so often left behind. 

He was here, next to you, right beside you in this strange bed. He was real. His one arm tucked around your middle was warm and actual. He wasn't just a figment of your lonesome imagination anymore. 

Or, at least you hoped he wasn't.

"Hey," His voice was soft and sleepy, and his breath filled the shell of your ear. "God, I've missed you."

He pulled you into him, enticing your gaze away from the eerie amber cityscape and towards his moss-green eyes. 

"Hi." You breathed it more than you said it, your stomach nervously flipping as you traced the dark shadows that bruised the underside of his eyes.

"How was your flight?" / "You look tired."

You droned over one another, wary smiles managing to peek out from under the veil of surreal unfamiliarity that had enveloped you both for the past few months and the alive thing that lived between you. 

"I've missed you, too." You whispered into his mouth, your hot words skimming his pink lips before you reached out to him with your body. 

He sighed, his chest pressing out into yours, and then he groaned a low kind of wordless sound of relief. 

"I'm sorry." He eventually found the words; your faces pressed so near together on his pillow that you were nothing but blurry warmth in the shape of bodies to one another, now.

You knew why he was sorry, and so did he. And that's all you needed, right at this moment — to know he knew that there was something to be sorry for and that he was. The hope that it would be easier tomorrow, or next week, or next time; that was a worry for later. 

For now, at this moment, all that really mattered was the beating of his heart under the palm of your hand and his fingertips tracing all the lines of you that'd been out of reach for so long.


	3. Fluff

The evening was warm and heady, and, somehow, it felt like the world existed wholly and only here, in your back garden.

The crickets were chatting alongside the people dotted around the tables and lain across the cool grass. There were empty bottles lined up on one of the stone nib walls. And there — a head above almost everyone else — was your man with a tipsy smile plastered over his handsome face and a blush spread across his high cheekbones courtesy of the half-done whiskey glass in his hand.

He smiled at you, just you, a beaming kind of giddy look that rolled off the whole of him. He was happiness personified at this moment. And he was bringing it and his warm grin and his sweet self towards you as he made his wobbly way across the courtyard.

"Hey," He murmured before ducking down to capture your lips in a hot, wet kiss. He tasted of whiskey and smoke. "Having a nice time?"

You smiled and brushed back a strand of hair from his dewy forehead, your heart skipping when he closed his eyes and melted into your touch, and then grabbed your hand and pressed another kiss to your palm before you could slip away. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. Are you?"

He just nodded, eyes sparkling in that lovely but sometimes dangerous way they did.

He finished the last sip of his drink and set his glass on the table behind you, and then moved to stand in front of you. You were on the step with him standing below it, the usual gap between his scruffy chin and the top of your head shrinking slightly. "What're you up to, then?" You asked, your voice bubbling with curious glee.

He still said nothing, though. He just scuffed the toes of his boots against the edge of your stone perch and then enveloped you in his arms, his face pressing into your neck. You could feel the smile on his lips, his steamy breath on your skin. The burn from his prickly beard gave you chills. 

You wrapped him up in your arms too once it became clear he had no intentions to move; that he was content to stay awhile, hidden away and safe in the sanctuary that was you.

He hummed as your hands ghosted over the broad plane of his back, and you chuckled when he gently nipped on your earlobe before pulling back a bit, his face a fuzzy vision in front of your suddenly misty eyes. He noticed, because of course he did, and then he joined you in the strange fog of overwhelming, grateful reverence, his own eyes suddenly watery as well.

When he pulled away again, he fixed you in his gaze, his dark eyebrows furrowing slightly, before he breathed, "I love you." Plain and sure, and determined to remind you.

"I love you, too."


	4. Smut (light)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating of this work has changed, from this chapter onward.

It was early, but also not. The sun was up; it had been for hours. But it was hazy outside, and at any minute, the rain was sure to follow through on the threat it had been making since you'd woken.

He was in a mood this morning. You could tell. You knew it as soon as you opened your eyes and caught sight of him, grinning and unusually awake for this hour on a Sunday. His fingertips had been tracing patterns across your warm side, tickling and wandering, meaning to wake you.

You watched him watching you, intrigued to see what he had in mind — where those long fingers intended to travel and to do what.

He smiled again, chuckling at the hitch in your breath when he skimmed over your waistband. He nuzzled the side of your sleepy face, beard prickly and lips soft, warm, wet. Your face was turned toward the ceiling, watching the play of the shadows of the trees as they danced and trying to focus on being patient and on letting this play out.

"Good morning," he murmured, voice raspy but not from sleep.

He pulled back a bit then, catching your gaze as he lifted the fabric from your body. Making sure, just in case and like he always did, that you were with him.

When your head met the pillows again, you turned to face him, and he pulled your one leg over the top of his own, opening you up to his wandering hands. He kept kissing you, then pulling away to watch you react to him. He licked the bow in your top lip, then pulled back and grinned. Traced a lazy finger up the centre of your chest, his eyes flitting between your face and the path he was following, analysing the everything about you.

He watched you lose your breath, blush, close your eyes, and then force them open again.

He watched your mouth drop open when he dipped one finger inside you, slowly. Then two, slowly still.

His eyes only left your face to watch your hand as it moved from his chest and down, down his body — his hand stilling as yours moved, his lips falling open, mirroring you. And so you brought him with you, his previously calm breath now shaky too, then keening.

He grunted, and you moaned, both of your hands moving faster, both your bodies hurtling towards the same precipice. Together.

You watched him watching you. He watched you watching him. And then, somehow, the tether of each other's delirious gaze became a part of it. Became it; became the connection.

Every time his eyes fell shut, he would open his mouth a little wider, a desperate kind of mewling moan tumbling out, and then he'd manage to open them again.

Your eyebrows furrowed, and your face got hot and hotter. Sticky and wanting. You rocked your head back, trying still to make your way back to his gaze until he crashed into you, and then broke all over you and you over him, like the waves you were.

An ocean, together. Strange and unknown and always worth exploring.


	5. Angst

The first time you met him, you fell into him because when he looked at you, he saw you.

When you first realised you loved him, that you were hopelessly and devotedly in love with him, it was in part because you were sure you were safe to let yourself be known by him.

But now, here, tonight, his ability to see and know you lent itself more to suffering than it did anything else because from where he sat on the opposite side of this heaving room, he could already tell that a part of you was missing.

You want him to be able to tell you why. You want him to have all the answers you didn't know the questions to yet. You want him to be able to turn it back around, change it, find that bit of you that you'd lost somewhere.

You want him.

You blink, eyes heavy and time barely real to you anymore, and then there he is — all but an apparition standing in front of you.

"Do you want to get some air?"

_ No. No, I don't. I'm afraid of what you might see if you look at me too much, too hard, for too long.  _

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

He goes to touch you when you stand to meet him, his elegant hand ghosting over the small of your back. But then you sigh, and so he gets nervous, and he pulls away.

You want him to touch you, you think. Perhaps that would help, although maybe it wouldn't. You can't tell if the problem is that you don't get to have him to yourself anymore, or not — that you don't get to touch him when you want or how, or if it's just that he's not really yours. Not like he was before.

He doesn't try again, though, and neither do you. He opens the door, and you walk through it, and then, it's just you and him and the night.

A city never really gets dark, not absolutely. Not like it does at home. And so because of that, the air never really changes. It's just there, dank, and always just slightly too warm.

It's not enough night, and it's too sticky out here, and he's staring, but he's not standing close enough, or maybe he is, you can't tell.

No words pass his lips, but everything about him is begging you to tell him how you are. His eyebrows, knitted together in worry, his watery green eyes. The lip he was biting down on and the tangle of his nervous fingers. The slight shudder in his hand. The anxious shuffle of his boots on the pavement. All of it, all of him, unsure and waiting.

"I'm not okay," you manage finally, but barely. "and I don't know why."

His gaze falls from you as he tries to hide his fear behind his hands as he scratches nervously at his beard.

"Tell me what you need me to do." His soft voice gets caught between a car horn and a siren. "Can you? Please?"

You feel like you might be sick, or maybe you'd just very much like to lay down here on the filthy ground, curl up, and go to sleep.

"It's nearly over." He's begging again, but with all that he has this time. "One more week, and we get to go home. Just you and me, at home. Our home."

You look at him, and you see him, and he looks right back, and you both know you're still hiding part of yourself away.


	6. Fluff

He was always himself, earnest almost to a fault, but rarely was he ever closer to being his whole, honest self than when he was by the sea. 

He liked to lose himself, was the truth of it — to give over a bit of himself to other forces; to music, to a crowd, to nature, to the ocean. And most of all, to you.

It was something you loved and envied about him in equal measure. 

A part of you wished you were more able — or less scared — to surrender yourself. But then every time you came here and sat in the sand with the salt air licking at your face, your sight filled with the sea and the dream-grey sky and himself, happy and content and bright, you got just a little bit braver. 

He laughed a lot when he was here, at the seaside. Sometimes with you, sometimes to himself. But he was grateful to be here always, even when he wasn't altogether okay. 

So, as you watched him now, his broad, pale shoulders breaking through the silvery sheen on the water as he made his way home to you, you realised that, somehow, you loved him a bit more than you did before. More even than this morning, more than yesterday. 

As the sound of his throaty chuckle floated over to you where you were standing waiting on the shore, your heart leapt, and you gave over a little more of yourself to your love for him. 

All the bits of him that weren't pink were nearly blue. His teeth were chattering, and he was vibrating with shivers. But still, he beamed at the mere sight of you wandering down the beach toward him, towel in one hand, dryrobe in the other. 

"You're mad. Absolutely mad." You sighed, bemused, as you launched the towel at him, wrapping his top half in the enormous sheet of terry. 

He let out a little huff and then went quiet but for the chattering of his teeth, while you reached up, steadying yourself on his damp chest, to squeeze a bit of the saltwater out of his already curling hair. 

"Thank you," he murmured, eyes casting lovingly over your face.

You blushed under the intensity of his gaze, distracting yourself by wrapping him up in his coat.

"Come 'ere," He said, long fingers coiling gently around the crook of your arm as he tried to tug you nearer. "come here to me, now."

You surrendered, squealing giddily as your dry self collided with his wet body, his gorgeous, freezing cold face breaking out in a devilish smile as he rubbed his dripping beard against your cheek, your nose, your neck. 

He wrapped you up and pulled you into him, swaddling you in his long arms and fluffy coat before he kissed you.

"You'll have to come in next time." He whispered into your mouth, knowing that if he kept you distracted well enough with his sweet lips and wandering hands, that you'd let him warm himself by you for as long as he liked. 

"Maybe." You nodded against him, tucking your fingertips just under the band of his black swim shorts. "We'll see."


	7. Angst (light)

It wasn't just that time had ceased to make sense anymore. It was that nothing did.

You hadn't known the name or the number of a day in months, let alone the time within any given unsettling and unrelenting one. 

Lately, you'd often been waking for no reason, at four am, and only ever really for long enough to glance at the numbers shining out from the blue light of your phone screen. You got up each day and showered, caffeinated, watched the news. And by then, either the day was half gone, or the morning had stretched on forever.

In the beginning, a year ago, there had been a sweetness to the sadness of it all. There was a luxury to having him all to yourself, having every day of every week for months laid out in front of you with no impending leave-date bearing down. And that sweetness was still there, but like with most things, it had given way to a new form. These days, this year — year two — if he was awake when you rose, he'd wish you a soft "Good morning," with a press of his lips to yours, to your hair, or to whatever part of you he could reach. And then he'd go on his way, try to find his place in the day (and in the strange new world), and so too would you. 

And then you'd have dinner — unless you didn't. In which case you'd meet in bed, sometimes at the same time and other nights not. Like with most things, most of the time, lately, there was something bittersweet about this new way of life. It was bearing down on you now, how void it was, but you weren't sure how to say so or what to do about it. 

You felt like he was missing from you, from your life, from your union. Like he was pulling away. But you also didn't trust yourself these days, so you couldn't be sure if you felt the way you did because it was real, or if it was just another symptom of being locked down, in this house, in the world and wondering, for quite so long as you had been, now. 

Night fell, and you moved from your makeshift desk at the dining table to the kitchen island where you ate, to the couch in front of the television. You sat there in the relative darkness, both literal and metaphorical, alone, staring at the screen but not watching it. 

You nodded off at some point, your body giving in to the exhaustion of the nothingness (and everything-ness) that you were so used to by now, and when you woke again, you were no longer lonesome. 

There was a familiar lanky body wrapped around yours, tucked in between yourself and the couch cushions. His face pressed into the pillow your head was on, his wild mane tickling your nose, and his breath warm where it fell on the nape of your neck. 

He had one arm wrapped around your middle like a makeshift seat belt, lest his snuggling in beside you be at all precarious. Or maybe, he just didn't want to let you get away. 

You danced your fingertips lightly over his tense, sinewy forearm, resisted the urge to smooth out the new knots there, and then tangled your hand together with his where they lay tucked just under the hem of your jumper. 

He huffed, waking barely, and pulled you closer still, all of you pressing up against all of him.

"Missed you today." He mumbled. And that's all it took for the dark something to lift, and so you hummed in return, settling into him and letting the day go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for m & s.


	8. Fluff

You weren't sure of the exact time or even if it technically still qualified as such, but you were calling this right here a very good morning. 

You were sat on the benchtop, legs swinging and giggles falling from your lips. Every so often, you'd manage to reach him, landing a gentle prod with your foot to his still-pajama-pant-clad butt. He had gotten entirely too much sleep and was edging towards being over-caffeinated, over-stimulated, dangerously adorable, but altogether endearing. 

"Juice?" He announced the question with one infuriatingly perfect raised eyebrow and a lopsided grin. You could only nod through your giddy laughter. He poured two glasses, returned the juice bottle from whence it came (the fridge), checked the fruit he was rescuing by cooking to go with the porridge, and then glided across the kitchen and back to you. 

As soon as he was near enough, you reeled him in, hooking your heels behind his thighs and trapping him, not unwillingly, in the space between your legs and the edge of the kitchen island. It was his turn to chuckle now, a raspy sound followed by a reedy moan as you dragged his face down to meet yours and pressed a sticky, fruity kiss to his lips.

"You're a terrible chef's assistant," he mumbled into your mouth, stealing one more kiss from your comically indignant looking face before escaping your clutches briefly to check on his stewing fruit. 

"That's a bit rich coming from you." You watched him watching his pot, quietly fascinated by the casual intensity he applied even to this; to breakfast.

He grabbed the canister of porridge that lived by the stove before turning his eyes back to you. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"The incident with the risotto turned to paella? That's all I'm saying." You grinned and shot him a heady look of your own, flashes of memories bringing a pleasant heat to your face. 

He chortled and then swiftly began to blush himself, pink from his cheekbones down to the hint of his chest that was peeking out from the v of his cardigan. Why he was wearing yesterday's roll-neck cardigan with nothing on underneath was a mystery to you, but you weren't about to complain.

Ignoring the distraction that was you, or maybe reminiscing, he turned and poured the oats into the pot to toast them briefly but then quickly realised he'd forgotten to grab the milk beforehand.

"I'll get it," you hopped down from the bench and swanned over to the fridge, then joined him at the stove. You placed the milk bottle in his outstretched hand, accepted his cheeky wink as a thank you, and then pressed your face into the warmth of his back and settled in, looping your arms around his waist.

"The risotto paella was your fault, by the way." He added softly, stirring with one hand and tracing mindless notes over the top of your own hand with the other. "You were pure torture that night."

You smothered a devilish chuckle in the soft fleece covering his back at the memory, puffs of your hot breath seeping through to his bare skin underneath. "You more than got your own back, as I recall."

"Mmm," He hummed, the vibration of it rumbling through his chest. "Well, we'll have to see what I can come up with after all this, this morning, then."


	9. Smut (ish)

It's raining, icy little droplets peppering the window panes. But above the dim racket of the weather, this room is filled with heaving chests, panting breath, and the mewling remainders of satisfied moans. 

He's chuckling to himself in a slightly delirious kind of a way, his breath whispering through the wilds of your damp hair, cooling your sticky skin. "Mmm," he rumbles, and you can feel the vibration of it pushing into you where your chest is pressed against his, your body still spent where you dissolved into him a few moments ago.

You lift your head finally, accepting the clumsy kiss he drags across your bruised lips as you attempt verticality. You anchor your shaky hands over his stomach, his hip, as you leave him, his body slipping from yours with a gasp, which you echo. A satiated "Ahh," sound, inhaled. 

You stumble slightly once your feet hit the floor, your wobbly legs still catching up with the rest of you as you wander into the bathroom quickly. He's watching the door when you reemerge, waiting. His eyes are half-lidded, you can tell, even from here, even in the silvery moonlight. He holds out an arm, one hand outstretched, as he tries to coax you back to him more quickly.

You fall inelegantly onto the sheets beside him, and he flips the sheet up and over you both. The billowing veil of it falling slowly, slowly, giving him more than enough time to rake his greedy gaze over your bare body before it disappears from his sight.

He hums again, his fingertips dancing across your overheated flesh. He starts his trek at the back of your knee, the one nearest to him, and then trails up, up the back of your thigh. You squirm a bit when he splays his hand over your behind, squeezes once, then moves to the dip of the small of your back. You lose track of his touch when his lips meet your shoulder — you're too distracted by the trace of his nose up the line of your neck. And then he nuzzles into the pillow where you've laid your head, his mouth searching blindly for yours, again. 

You let him drag you under the pleasant weight of his own tired body, over to his side of the bed. And for a spell, it's just his mouth on yours, your breath mingling, the soft sounds of your mutual, contented satisfaction floating in the air alongside the steady fall of the rain. 

You can feel him, half-hard against your stomach, and you wonder if you can go again. Or if he wants to. 

You needn't wonder for long, though. 

He starts sinking, his wet hot mouth dragging down the line of your throat and over your collarbone, following your breastbone until he descends to the top of your stomach and then he pauses. His eyes are bright again, impish. He starts tracking a line of kisses along the crescent of your rib cage, crooning softly to the tune of 'Let's Do it Again' in-between gentle laughter. 

He looks up once more before continuing on his heady way, checking in. And then he's halfway off the bed, the sheet gone with him, as he sings to himself against your willing, wanting body.


	10. Fluff

It’s night enough that time doesn’t hold meaning. 

It’s late, or maybe early, because it always is when he finally falls into bed and succumbs to sleep; him, a night owl. 

You asked him once if he felt like he was committing a betrayal in some way if he didn’t take the evenings for all that they were worth. If he felt like he was wasting them by not allowing himself the solace that they offered to be himself, for himself, and without needing to be answerable to anyone?

He’d chuckled and given you a lopsided grin, shaking his head and whispering, “That’s not true.” 

Then, he’d dragged you into his lap and buried his weary head in the crook of your neck, mumbling funny promises into your soft skin. “I’m answerable to you. Always.” He’d kissed your collarbone, your throat, your chin, the tip of your nose. “Day or night, rain or shine.”

Not that you were one much for the daylight hours, either. With the day comes burdens. The burden to be available, to be professional, to be awake — to be the most palatable version of yourself, devoid of mess and worry. Tidy, with all the ruins of you obscured from view, tucked away in the shadows, hidden safely in the dark. 

He was asleep though now, and you were the one left roaming the house in the dead of night. 

When you’d left him, he was cocooned in the bed, blankets up under his chin and his wild mane strewn across his pillow and, somehow, yours as well. It was a cold night, and he was greedy when it came to your warmth, cuddling up and holding you near, his whole body wrapped around yours, an echo across the sheets.

You’d managed to disentangle yourself from him, slipping from under the soft, sleepy weight of his body and out from the bed. The carpet had been cool on your bare feet, so you’d grabbed a pair of his socks from the pile of his clean laundry that was sat waiting to be put away and then nabbed the tangled throw from the foot of the bed before setting off into the dark hallway. 

You were in the living room now, tucked up on the couch, icy feet folded beneath you. You’d heard whispers about impending sneachta on the evening news — that almost inevitable, once yearly chance for a bit of wintery wonder. It wasn’t that it was late this year exactly, but so consumed had you been with the now-familiar, all-consuming dread of daily life that you’d all but forgotten to wish for its arrival. 

You hadn’t woken earlier when he’d crawled into the bed beside you, but you had when the silence had crept in. Not that it was particularly rowdy the rest of the time. But the embracing silence that settled in just before the snow fell was different than the usual serenity to which you’d become attuned.

Between the low light of the moon and the powdery veil of white that was now falling steadily, you had no need for lamplight. And so you just sat, soothed by the unremarkable remarkableness of the weather, and then, soon enough, by him, as well. 

You had heard him padding down the stairs, the slide of his sock-clad feet on the floor as he searched for you. And then his head popped around the door, hair haphazard and one eyebrow cocked before his eyes drifted to the window. 

He let out a little gasp and then a soft laugh, relieved sounding, just like the way you felt. “Fair enough,” he murmured, as he dropped a dozy kiss to your forehead. 

You shuffled forward on the couch to make room for him and lifted your blanket to share as he grabbed another and settled in behind you.

He swathed you both in blankets, his arms tucked along your sides, your legs resting between his. You nestled into him, cozy in your little weather-watching nest, your back against his chest, your heartbeats drumming away alongside. 

“It’s not all bad.” He mumbled, lips finding yours. 

“No,” you said, eyes wandering between his heavy eyes and the world like a snowglobe, just outside your window. “It’s really not.”


	11. Smut

His cool fingers were tracking down your spine, his hot breath pouring into your open mouth. 

The curtain shielding the open window was gently undulating, the outside breathing fresh air into the steamy room. 

His hands were moving up and down, down and up your back. Strumming over the rungs of your spine like he was playing your body, making you his instrument.

The gasping rise and fall of your chests was slower now that your bodies had stilled. The thrum of your pulse in your ears had waned. 

All that you could hear now was your sighing breath mingling with his and the warbling birds perched on the chimney outside.

Every so often, his forehead would drop to meet yours, your shoulder, your chest. A soft grunt would slip from his bitten-on lips, his hands grabbling against your hips while he settled himself, caught himself, calmed himself. Not that you were altogether calm yourself. The sense of utter gratification you felt at being so close — no space left between you and all the lines of your beings blurred together — was beyond anything you’d quite known before. 

It was wholesome, but not like that. It was fulfilling, in more ways than just the symbolic. It was better, and more. 

It was entirely possible you were just drunk on him and him on you, but even still, you were sure that this, with him, was different than it had ever been before. Every time, it was like you were bottling lightning. 

The slow burn of your spent muscles was more delicious. The stretch and the weight of his body against yours was pure relish. All those tiny sparks, trembles, whispery touches of fingertips, and lips on skin, were more — were little tremors, earthshaking and soul rattling.

The room took another breath, a cool gust sweeping across your sticky fevered skin. Gooseflesh rose on his arms where you were anchored to him now, a shiver creeping up his bowed spine. You let him hold you as you leaned back, draped between his not-quite crossed legs, your lazy gaze fixed on his flushed face. 

He was pink and breathless and completely intoxicated, and you’d never felt more powerful than you did at this moment. 

You smiled at him, one hand cradling his scruffy cheek, and he melted into your touch. You dragged a thumb across his bottom lip, his mouth wet and pouting. He took a breath, a whiney gasp, and then rasped, “Come ‘ere.”

He brought you back to him, pressed you up against all of him and his wanting mouth as well, and then he said,

“More.”

“… god,” 

(“Fuck,”)

“I love you.”


	12. Fluff

It was spring, officially. Finally. But, even so, the days still had a chill, and the sun was working hard to thaw the winter from the frozen ground and you, as well. 

It was mid-morning, and you were two coffees and one tea deep into your day, already. You were flirting with the idea of making something for brunch — maybe porridge or toast. Perhaps something that was less like breakfast and would tide you over until dinnertime; invariably a late-night endeavour, these days. 

The only problem with your well-laid plans was that you couldn’t seem to drag yourself from the warm sunlight streaming in through the window. You hadn’t felt so comfortably snug in ages, and you were tempted just to sit down on the hardwood and make the most of it. 

And so, you did. 

He’d been out in the studio since surprisingly early this morning, having seen you off with a languorous kiss before he’d disappeared from the kitchen and your sight, his mumbles still thick with sleep, his eyes squinting softly behind his glasses. 

“I’ll make lunch,” he’d whispered, and you’d smiled anyway, even though you knew he’d get lost out there and forget. And then off he’d gone, rambling down the house, a green blur in his jumper, a spectre of wild hair, redolent of coffee.

You’d heard the door go a bit ago, and you’d briefly entertained the thought of getting up from your spot in the sun. But then you hadn’t. And so by the time he made his way to you, you were spoiled with the sight, reflected in your glassy portal, of one very lanky lad doing a terrifically dramatic double-take at the glimpse of a puff of your own unruly hair poking out from behind the corner. 

“What’re you doin’ down there?” He towered above you, a look of pure delight and adoration spread across his handsome face. 

“Warm,” You just shrugged, grinning up at him and resting back on your arms, nudging your still chilly, sock-clad toes against the bottom of the window. 

“Oh, yeah?” He asked with his head cocked to one side like an overgrown puppy. “Alright, then.”

And with that, he collapsed clumsily onto the floor beside you, nudging you to the edge of your beam so that he could share in it. 

You giggled at him and the ridiculousness of it all while he rearranged you just how he wanted you — his head on your lap, his legs bent so that his feet didn’t miss out on any of the sunshine. 

“You good?” You asked, reflecting the look he’d given you earlier, hopelessly endeared by him. 

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured, dragging your face down to meet his for a lazy kiss. 

All of your good intentions to get up, to move, to cook, dissolved. You gave in, laid down on the floor, because, why not? It was spring, there was sunlight, he was here, wrapped up in you, and you and the world and him as well — you were finally thawing out.


	13. Fluff

It’s pitch dark but for the hazy light of the moon, and all you can hear is his drunken laughter. 

He’s swaying there beside you, your hand wrapped tightly in his own, and he’s giggling to himself while muttering about how this was a bad idea — this, the pair of you walking home from the local pub instead of getting a lift or calling in a favour, or staying put in the first place and getting drunk at home. 

You join him in his merriment, the tune of his breathy little chuckles infectious, lifting your heart and bringing a ridiculous, hopeless grin to your flushed face. 

He’s wobbly on his feet, and so are you. You keep staggering into each other, weaving a shambolic path through the night, over damp grass, and through shallow puddles. 

Over and over again, on the corners of sleepy streets, you fall into each other. You’re delighted, the both of you, with the anonymity of the night, with all that whiskey. And with the sheer loveliness of being able to stop, whenever you wanted, and to kiss the face off the other simply because the mood had taken you.

When you’re sure you’ve spotted a tree that’s familiar up ahead, he grabs you again, steadying himself against an evergreen lad you’re less acquainted with and slipping one hand into your hair and the other beneath the hem of your shirt. 

The alcohol has made his usually icy fingers warm, and even the bite of chill in the air hasn’t cooled him off. His mouth is lazy against yours, hot and wet and panting softly. 

You tuck your hands up and under the front of his jumper, dipping beneath the loop of his belt. All so you can steal a bit of his cosy warmth for yourself.

“Careful,” he hums, bemused. He gets like this when he’s had just enough but not too much to drink — it’s more than flirty, but not dominating. It’s hungry, insatiable, wanting.

“Or what?” You’re feeling much the same, brave in the shadows and under his heady gaze, his wandering hands.

One perfect eyebrow quirks up, and then he’s kissing you again, ravenous. 

And then he grabs you by the hand, tucks you into this side, and begins to all but race up the street, towards the familiar tree, almost home. 

It’s giggles and sloppy kisses while you scramble for the keys, tipsy laughter as you both try to kick off your shoes, your coats, the bits of every and anything that lay between his bare skin and yours. 

It’s missed light switches and missteps and stumbles into walls, into each other, into not-quite open doors. It’s him forgetting his own height and you climbing up to reach his delectable lips. It’s beard burn and fingertip-shaped bruises and moans that fill the whole house, escaping the room.

It’s him, and you, and the night.


	14. Fluff

_(Summer)_  
  
It is warmer but rarely is it hot. 

Some nights are still chilly, still so cool to be in need of blankets and warm bodies. Still crisp enough to be comfortable wrapped up in him and the inevitable mess that becomes of the bedding between you.   
  
Other nights though, are balmy. Mugginess like soup, the heat of the day making for a sultry night.  
  
On nights like these, you sprawl apart together over the mattress stripped of everything but the sheets. He wrangles his wild hair into something like a bun, and you the wear only barest of minimums — underwear and the corner of the sheet that's not tangled between his long legs.  
  
The window stays open, the outside breathing sticky freshness into the room.   
  
He grows restless in the heat, tossing and turning all night beside you. When he’s face up, he stretches out, reaches for you. He’ll lay a hand on your back, your stomach, anchoring himself to you amongst the tide of his broken sleep. And when he’s prone, he’ll nudge one leg against yours — or sometimes just a foot — unable to resist his desire to touch you, to hold you, even when the night dissuades it.  
  
+  
  
_(Autumn)_  
  
You’re both more comfortable in the in-between. When the nights are more predictable, and the days are fit for just about anything you please.   
  
He likes being cozy, likes swaddling himself and especially himself with you, in blankets. Of a night, when there’s a chill in the air but you’ve resisted the urge to switch on the heater, he’ll wander around the house with a blanket draped over himself — like a shawl, you often tease, or a Viking replete with cape, if you’re feeling generous.  
  
In bed, he’s just as cosy. Snuggly, even. He wraps himself around you, steals for himself what's left of your pillow. He tucks one hand under the hem of your shirt, his long fingers leaving pink shadows over your skin come morning.  
  
He sleeps better when it’s cooler. When he’s comfortably snug, and he can doze how he wants — wrapped up in you. 

+  
  
_(Winter)_  
  
The trouble with winter is the hot water bottle.   
  
The problem is his legs and his ever-chilly feet that live at the ends of them.   
  
It’s not so bad when he wears socks to bed, his ice-cold toes safely wrapped up in wooly down, mitigating his sleepy habit of pressing them against the various warm parts of you they can reach — which would be less of an issue, you’ve told him, if he weren't so keen on yoga, these days. (A surprisingly bendy lad.)  
  
And so when he finally relented to your gentle prodding on the subject of a hot water bottle, you’d thought the problem solved — a genius solution. What you’d neglected to consider, however, was that he was a fiend when it came to being cuddly and warm and that it was all but inevitable that he’d steal the little heat source for himself.   
  
He sleeps tucked in behind you, his front pressed against your back, his legs curled up behind your own. His feet, way down there at the foot of the bed, rest beside the fluffy belly of radiant warmth, and even when he’s fast asleep beside you, you still can’t bring yourself to steal the little bottle away from him.  
  
+  
  
_(Spring)_  
  
For all of his cuddly cosiness, come spring, he revels in the odd night when it’s mild enough to let the blankets fall by the wayside; when it’s not too cool to let the moon light up the room, light up the bareness of you.   
  
He shoves the blankets away from the tangle of your bodies, grasping at the edges left behind while you hover above him. And he leaves them there, kicked half off the bed and forgotten, when you’ve done, his hungry eyes watching the slow creep of goose flesh upon your body as he wonders what of it is his doing, and which belongs to the crisp night air.   
  
He likes to lay like that with you, enjoys the nakedness of it. He revels in the shroud of intimacy, the unique togetherness of being alone together in your home, in your bed, bare and spent in the dark.   
  
Eventually, one of you will shiver, and he’ll give in, wrap you both back up and settle into the drunken haze of slumber. But you know and he does too that soon you’ll be back here again — maybe tomorrow night, maybe the next — bare to the springtime moon, surrendering to the night and each other, again and again, forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who have left comments (and kudos). I truly do appreciate them, and you’ve all been so sweet and kind. I’ll try not to leave it so long between updates, next time.


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